The present application generally concerns the field of lancing, and specifically concerns maintaining sterility of a lancet prior to use without impeding mobility of the lancet during actuation of the lancet.
Integrated disposable devices have been proposed in which a lancet is sealed behind a sterility barrier. A difficulty resulting from a lancet sealed behind a sterility barrier is damage to the sterility barrier such that the lancet is exposed. For example, if a lancet is not immobilized then it may unintentionally move and damage and/or puncture the sterility barrier. A damaged sterility barrier may not maintain the sterility of the lancet. A user lanced with a contaminated lancet could lead to infection of the user. Further, the test results from a contaminated lancet may not be accurate which could lead to many problems, mainly that of inadequate healthcare for the user.
Other integrated disposable devices have been proposed in which the lancet is sealed within a protective packet, for example, by a jointing technique to form a lancet packet. In some forms, the lancet packet is attached to a test strip to form a biosensor. One jointing technique includes positioning the lancet between a top layer of material and a bottom layer material and sealing the layers around the lancet with adhesive tape to form a lancet packet. As another example, a second jointing technique includes sandwiching the lancet between a pair of adhesive coated foils in which the coated foils are heat sealed together to form a lancet packet. In either jointing technique, excess adhesive often adheres the lancet to the foils or layers which can impede or impair mobility of the lancet during the lancing process. In other words, the lancet is stuck to one or both layers and most likely not properly driven into a user's skin to form an adequate incision in which a bodily fluid sample can be obtained. Additionally, the adhesive tape and/or the adhesive coated foils increase the overall thickness of the lancet packet and similarly decrease the number of lancet packets that can be stacked in a diagnostic structure. Moreover, mechanical devices used to apply the adhesive tape between the layers of packets and the blades or punching tools used to cut and shape the lancet packets require periodic cleaning to remove excess adhesive from the mechanical devices, blades, and/or punching tools.
Thus, there is a need for improvement in this field.